Hello

I'm going to organize a trip this summer. I want to plan everything. I’ll fly to Moscow, and I also want to visit St. Petersburg.

Could you, please, advise me what places I should visit? I’ll stay in Moscow for about 10 days before going to St. Petersburg.

Thank you!

Hello and welcome to 2+2!

How well do you speak Russian?

Why are you going to stay in Moscow for so long? Are you interested in watching several World Football Championship matches being held here?

I live in a suburb of Moscow and find it a rather boring city. It's designed for earning money, not for living People tend to be in a rush here. The cultural capital of Russia is St. Petersburg. Kazan is interesting if you're into the Muslim culture.

Hilariously, Yoshkar-Ola, a small regional centre, has recently built a lot of fancy classical style buildings due to the effort of the previous governor of Mari El, Leonid Markelov, but it remains a city of contrasts, with utterly dirty yards next to the fancy squares

Also, Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, has become a fancy city during the post-war reconstruction heavily sponsored by Putin's government.

I've subscribed to the thread and shall search for English-language videos about the sights of Moscow later.

You may also want to visit some Belarusian cities, incl. the capital city of Minsk. Citizens of many countries actually don't need a visa to visit Belarus if they arrive through the Minsk airport and stay up to 5 days. The Minsk airport is also a known loophole for foreigners to sneak into Russia without a visa, as the border between Belarus and Russia is mostly open (at least, there are no checks on trains); there were talks about Russia granting short periods of visa-free stay to foreign tourists too, to match the Belarusian policy, but I'm not up-to-date on the latest visa policy developments, shall check later what policy is expected during the championship.

DONT GO THERE. Rly bad country....

Well, it's safe enough to stay in large Russian cities for a little while, however, I don't see why this country can be interesting to a Westerner in the long term

I suspect that the soccer championship is the reason why OP even considered going to Russia in the first place.

beautiful women and such a big mysterious country I'd love to visit Russia but would be to scared to visit really, being from the UK I would imagine I'd get hassled often.... would you agree c74?

Specifically in Moscow, I think it's quite safe to walk in the evenings nowadays, unlike in the 1990s. There are surveillance cameras in most apartment blocks and also in the streets (the latter are being used to detect speeding and can be used as proofs in court) and even cars (also used as proofs in traffic accident cases).

Besides, those who can afford to pay the hefty Moscow rent at all are so rich that they're unlikely to commit petty crime. Cities that are smaller than St. Petersburg are less safe, of course, particularly in the Urals, as people are poorer on avg there.

During the 28 years of living in Moscow, most of which were spent in a neighbourhood that's abundant in low-income immigrants, I've only been hassled once (touch wood), in 2002 or so, and got away with giving $2 or so to an unarmed guy who just needed it to buy cigarettes or sort of.

As for women, why don't you look for them in Poland and other Eastern EU countries instead?